I made two other tea light holders with the same carving technique but a different painted stain. I continued the carved design along the sides and bottom of the blocks:





I applied a darker stain colour inside the carved shapes to bring out the design, then later brushed on the lighter stain over the rest of the block to enhance the bass wood’s natural grain:

After a couple of very late Christmas gifts were delivered, I finally have an opportunity to share some of the projects I was so busy working on during the holidays. As happens every season, I planned for some interesting projects early in the year with the intention of having December off to relax and enjoy the holidays. Does this ever happen for anyone? It never manages to happen for me, despite how early I start (this year it was July!). Hope springs eternal, and I still am determined to see this miracle occur one day. I’ll keep you posted!

One of the more involved projects was to make a series of tea light holders out of basswood. This is my first foray into wood carving with a Dremel tool, and I loved it. I had a good friend with some serious power tools cut the wood blocks to size for me, and then show me how to drill holes that would hold tea lights.
In this first project, I sanded the block well first, transferred my image in pencil, then proceded to carve out the image using a couple of very small bits. I then used fine-grain sandpaper to perfect the edges so that it was ready for staining:



I brushed on some stain across the top half of the block, then used a shop towel to begin blending the stain out and down across the carved portion. I like the way the carved, unstained wood contrasts with the stained portion:



Here’s a detailed shot of the carved portion: